Computer Science for Engineers (CSE) Android Studio Primer

Transcription

1 Computer Science for Engineers (CSE) Android Studio Primer Overview Android Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) being offered by Google. Though it is still in development and undergoing updates, overall reception has been pretty positive, especially from developers new to Android and Eclipse. Android Studio is basically the IntelliJ IDEA IDE packaged with the Android SDK, tools and functionality for developing Android apps including a WYSIWYG app designer, the Android virtual device (AVD) Manager, app signing functionality, etc. Once you have the basics down, you can check out some more advanced features in this review video: Download / Install Search for Android Studio and find the download page. Download and install it. It is ok if you already have Eclipse + ADT installed; Android Studio will come with its own internal Android SDK. NOTE: The only files that will likely be shared between multiple installations of the SDK are the AVDs that you create. This is because they are stored in the same location on disk. For example, if you have already created a few AVDs with the AVD Manager in Eclipse + ADT, those AVDs are accessible from Android Studio and vice versa. And in general they may have to be recreated if they were created with different versions of the Android SDK. Thankfully, creating an AVD is very easy.

2 Usage Once you run Android Studio the first time, you ll want to select New Project... Use the New Project creation wizard to set your application name, folder location on disk, module (or project) name in Android Studio, set target SDK options, etc. The general layout of Android Studio should look something like this (below), with a Project button to open a window for your project files on the left, build/run buttons on a toolbar up top, and Design/Text tabs for editing XML layout files. Remember this is a beta and may contain bugs. For instance if you don t see the Design/Text tabs by default, you can undock the layout file tab and re- dock it and they should show up, and you can always close/reopen the project itself.

3 Use the SDK Manager to view and download updates and support files for the Android SDK. For instance, if not already installed, you probably want to download the documentation files, samples, etc., and some features of Android Studio itself will require additional tools that must be downloaded.

4 Put the mouse cursor over a class, method, library or package and you can use the hotkeys F1 and F1 to popup Android SDK documentation, which will reference the locally downloaded documentation files: Use the AVD Manager to create Android Virtual Devices (emulator profiles) for you to test your application on. Create multiple AVDs so you can how different your app looks and feels on various devices. Start one (by pressing the Start button) and keep it running, so when you Run or Debug your app, Android Studio will connect to it. If you attempt to Run or Debug without one running, Android Studio will popup a dialog asking which device you d like to use. The Snapshot option allows the AVD to keep it a snapshot of the state of the device, so that the next time you run it, it restores the snapshot and therefore loads much faster. If you do not use it this, it will have to boot the AVD from scratch each time. Sometimes you may want to turn this off and Wipe User Data to remove previous apps and their data, essentially creating a fresh device.

5 Use the Build Variants window to change the build configuration (Debug, Release, etc.)

6 Creating A Signed App Every app must be signed, even Debug apps. For an app to install on an AVD (or real device) it must be signed. Luckily when debugging, Android Studio will automatically sign your app with a special debug sign key. For Release apps, you are on your own. Access the menu option Build - > Generate Signed APK The first time, you will have to create a new keystore file (or use an existing one if you have already don t this before). Save your signed.apk file wherever you like. Previously you d have to byte align the final signed.apk, but Android Studio does this for you automatically as well. Troubleshooting Once you start copying.apk files to your AVDs (or real devices), you may run into various errors. Most of these are due to the fact that you may be attempting to copy an.apk with the same title as existing.apk. Typically the IDE will be smart enough to replace the existing.apk file, but if the signing certificate has changed, then you might have to delete the existing.apk file first. Do so by the normal Uninstall process on the device (dragging the app to the desktop trashcan), or by using the command line tool, adb.